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Who can blame a child for the weakness of his parents?" |
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"Isabella can!" Salisbury spat bitterly. |
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Before Ian could remark soothingly that Queen Isabella was capable of any idiocy and should not be used as an example of what others thought, Salisbury was launched on an ugly tale. He had a son born out of wedlock. The mother, a lady, had died in bearing. The child had been raised in his grandfather's household, but the old man had died when the boy was ten. Since he was well old enough for fostering, Salisbury had entrusted him to the queen. |
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"He is a good boy, quiet and obedient. He did not seek me out nor complain. I saw he was unhappy in the beginning, but I believed it could not be otherwise in a strange place. I thought he would grow accustomed. Then you know what befell. When John came to cuffs with the barons and then lost Normandy, I had no time to think of Geoffrey. When matters became more quiet, and I saw what had become of him" |
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Ian had a premonition of where this was leading, but he could think of nothing to say. |
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Salisbury ground his teeth in a rage. "The other pages and even the older squires made him their butt, and Isabella encouraged them. She sought him out to punish for anything and everythingfor having brown eyes, for his hair hanging straight. I suppose it is because she is jealous of the love her husband bears me, but to torment a child And she said to his face and to mine that he was a lesser thing, a bastard, and his mother was a whorewhich I swear she was not." |
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"You must take him out of there at once," Ian said intensely. The black, blank years of his own childhood rose in a wave behind the wall Simon had built to hold them back. "Even if the king should be angered and Isabella hate you more, you must" |
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"I know. Will you take him? I have watched Owain |
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